Apple: iCloud Announcement Coming At WWDC 2011

Apple announced in a press release that it will be taking the wraps off of a new offering, iCloud, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday, June 6.

Apple will also be showing off new software for its Mac computers and iOS devices. Apple wrote the company will "unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering."

The company also confirmed that Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave, will be among the "team of Apple executives" that will "kick off" WWDC.

Apple offered few details on what iCloud will look like, though there have been plenty of rumors. The company has reportedly finalized licensing deals with the music industry's top record labels, including EMI Music, Warner Music, Sony Music and Universal Music.

The music service could enable users to store their music in the "cloud," on remote servers, rather than by downloading tracks and storing them on separate devices.

BusinessWeek offers more information on the features iCloud could offer:

Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers' digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user's hard drive isn't good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars. And the music industry gets a chance at the next best thing after selling shrink-wrapped CDs: monthly subscription fees, à la Netflix (NFLX) and the cable companies.

See the full release on Apple.com here.

Comments

[Howard53545]

06:34 AM on 06/02/2011

Apple is going to kick their arses again. This changes everything.

[somearelost]

01:25 PM on 06/02/2011

Ahhhhhhhhhh fanboy alert!!!

[jabberwolf]

01:27 PM on 06/03/2011

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

iCloud has none of these and is NOT a cloud service. Its only a catch word that Apple sheep are used to following.

Plus Apple will probablyt lock down access to only itunes/apple devices - walled world again.
Apple already shamed itself by prostituting its DRM to the music companies.

No thanks Apple, never again. And stop with the marketing BS - these sheep are getting annoyong.

[hypnotoad72]

06:29 PM on 06/01/2011

iDisk, .Mac, MobileMe, iCloud... fourth time might not be the charm. I tried MobileMe -- it was not practical and the cloud principal means I'm hoping the people maintaining the space I lease do it right, with 100% uptime. Google and Amazon readily shown the Cloud concept is not perfect and they're not tiny upstart companies either... Never mind transmission speeds; but some people do have more than 10k word processing files and poor-quality cell phone camera pictures.

[drp103]

05:31 PM on 06/01/2011

I can access all of my music on my hard drive from my Android anywhere in the US. It is called Audiogalaxy So what will iCloud do for me?

[Euges]

12:43 PM on 06/01/2011

iCloud...The greatest things since Ping.

[TheTXI]

02:19 PM on 06/01/2011

I can't tell if this is a joke or not.

[drp103]

05:32 PM on 06/01/2011

you mean PONG?

[Alan McIntyre]

11:49 AM on 06/01/2011

Here in the UK I have Spotify, which gives me access to a huge library of music,14 million tracks and county via streaming. Also I can download on to my iPhone and other mobile devices. So why would I need iClound, I don't.

[Vic Tor]

02:04 PM on 06/01/2011

Don't worry, you're not even on Apple's radar.

[theveggiedude]

02:18 PM on 06/01/2011

None of us know what iCloud is yet, so lets wait and see, huh?

[Doug Watt]

09:37 PM on 06/04/2011

Yes, I hope it is more than what I expect, with surprising features that are new, in the way that the iphone gave us features we didn't even know we wanted yet.

[RedLeg2]

11:44 AM on 06/01/2011

Now with improved data mining and gps tracking!

[CheapTrick]

11:34 AM on 06/01/2011

I'm confused.. . they haven't released any particular s of the service at all but the "I don't like Apple" people are already going on about it's flaws. Do they have some info the rest of us don't?

Why is it that the Apple haters constantly cry about products or services that they have no use for but other people do? I mean, I don't stand outside CostCo yelling at people about how you can get better food at Whole Foods.

[David Landry]

11:55 AM on 06/01/2011

I see, so you never give your opinion on things you disagree or have issues with ... and neither should anyone else?

[CheapTrick]

02:48 PM on 06/01/2011

I mean, we're all here to debate stuff. But I will just never understand why people take it SO personally that I have an Apple TV instead of cable and an iPhone instead of an Android.

I debate things that affect me personally... politics, equal rights, laws, the war... not who made someone's mp3 player.

[hypnotoad72]

06:32 PM on 06/01/2011

When I read up on terms of service agreements and then think through what they offer the provider (not the customer, who is deemed less worthy than stinky banana peel trash these days), you bet I will cry about products or services. It's not just an Apple thing either: http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12691-0.html?forumID=1

[CheapTrick]

01:57 AM on 06/02/2011

Your sentence doesn't make sense and your link doesn't work.

[javajava]

11:07 AM on 06/01/2011

Today on the tech page;

8 Apple stories, 3 google, 2 facebook, 2 sony and 1 twitter.

Wow, if I didn't trust of HP reporting I would think this was all about product placement and puffery.

[CaptainObvvious]

01:35 PM on 06/01/2011

Should they report on topics that aren't going to get them web traffic?

[hypnotoad72]

06:45 PM on 06/01/2011

I'd rather actual news be posted, instead of speculation, innuendo, vaporware, and "Future announcements". This "iCloud Announcement" isn't news. It's hype. When the actual announcement is made and details revealed, then it'll pass as news. Having said that, almost anything can pass as news. The "Entertainment" section sadly speaks for itself. :(

[TheTXI]

02:22 PM on 06/01/2011

Why would we want to read tech news about tech companies. I certainly don't, and I'm sure nobody else, want to see any stories that happen to pertain to some of the biggest (and most recognized) tech companies on the planet.

[javajava]

03:42 PM on 06/01/2011

I have lived and worked in SV since the mid 80's The above mentioned represent a tiny slice of what happens in technology. Certainly an editor could find more intertainment for this page, if that was the intent. Ya know, sex bots, killer robot competitions, broadband sats, any thing. If you preference is for what are esentially new releases cool.

[Daws]

10:39 AM on 06/01/2011

It's hard for me to get excited about this in a world of data caps.

[plages]

10:25 AM on 06/01/2011

Isn't privacy of any importance any more, that is if we still have any privacy! Just asking.

[CheapTrick]

11:37 AM on 06/01/2011

What are you going on about? If you don't want a mirror service, you realize you don't have to sign up for it, right?

[netzwerg]

10:20 AM on 06/01/2011

This is great news, the consumer will buy this stuff.
Very good for us Apple shareholders!

[Deathly Pallor]

09:46 AM on 06/01/2011

iCloud: Because, more than anything else, I've always wished that access to my own data could be controlled completely by someone else.

[TheTXI]

02:23 PM on 06/01/2011

Nobody is going to hold a gun to your head and make you sign up.

[Deathly Pallor]

04:03 PM on 06/01/2011

Which, of course, is exactly what I was saying.........

[hypnotoad72]

06:36 PM on 06/01/2011

Until "market forces" render competition and personal capability "obsolete". I still prefer full ownership and control of my data, especially if I want to support myself off of it. Anything I do upload is rendered effectively profitless to such entities whose terms of service, in exchange for a "free" service, take uploaded data and give themselves a royalty-free helping hand so they can sell it and profit for themselves. A dead skunk is more likely to be benevolent, and what better way to encourage people than to corral them without making them realize they're being corralled...

[wheelzroller]

09:19 AM on 06/01/2011

Has anyone heard of the word PRIVACY ! Why would you place personal information into a
forum that can ( and will be ) controlled by an outside source. Do yourself a favour and
start to THINK about consequences.

[CheapTrick]

11:35 AM on 06/01/2011

Um... you realize you have an account here at Huffington Post, right?

[TheTXI]

02:23 PM on 06/01/2011

No, he/she probably doesn't realize that.

[ledzepfan]

08:26 AM on 06/01/2011

Cloud Computing.....Isn't this how SkyNet got started? Yikes!

[Sol76]

07:05 AM on 06/01/2011

iTunes already lets users mirror their high quality music files on any iPod by re-encoding them at 128 kbs. Internet radio is typically 128 kbs at best and I guess that is also the quality that iCloud will offer. With iPod capacities doubling roughly every generation and a half, most people will be able to mirror entire 128 kbs libraries on their devices, negating the need for iCloud.

From the little information we have about iCloud now, it seems like Apple is jumping on the cloud bandwagon.

[David Landry]

11:17 AM on 06/01/2011

What you want to bet that the Apple plan is to eventually stop selling portable devices with local storage and give away cheap 'iCloud iPods" that require subscriptions.

Oh sure, you say that's ridiculous .. who in their right mind would by Apple if they ever started forcing you to subscribe to Apple to listen to your own music ... but that's exactly what they are going to do with iCloud ... the storage-less iPod is just one small step away from that "Apple Dream" ... and fanbois, being fanbois, will go wild for this (as soon as Jobs tells them that they should be excited about this new "innovation".)

[CaptainObvvious]

01:37 PM on 06/01/2011

How popular has Ping or Apple TV been?

Jobs called those amazing and since they weren't that great people didn't buy, at least not as much as they hoped.

The iPhone and iPad have seen almost universal critical acclaim. Saying we buy things just because we're fanboys would require us to buy terrible products and that clearly isn't the case.

[hypnotoad72]

06:38 PM on 06/01/2011

Fairly high. 256kbps AAC format is passable - I can still tell compression artifacts, but it's far better than 128. 128kbps is not much better than 128kbps-compressed MP3, which is rubbish. But 320kbps is near-uncompressed (CD) level. That would be true "high quality" (either 320kbps or uncompressed). Otherwise, good point - people content with 128kbps, which is most, would be most content. My entire library fits on a 32GB iphone 3GS (@256kbps).